Covid-19 Thread

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2 hours ago, Len Cnut said:

I don't think I've ever met a homo-schooled person.

fixed 

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1 hour ago, Dazey said:

Because it speaks to a compete absence of critical thinking in the person concerned. Basically if they believe something so ridiculous then you have to question their reasoning on pretty much anything else.

yes, perhaps it is ridiculous to believe planet earth is 6000 years old, but in all honesty a person who believes that, could have the ability to reason. Maybe their reasoning led to a wrong conclusion in relation to earth's age, but you're making a logical fallacy yourself to characterise a whole person based on this little fact.

at the end of the day it's about the age of a pile of rocks.

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1 hour ago, Len Cnut said:

If people could home-school why the fuck were schools invented in the first place?  Not only that but, look, we got the internet now right, all the information at your fingertips.  Ever see a motherfucker with an internet education?  You know those guys, living in fuckin' bedsits, usually smoke a shitload of week, stopped going to school around aged 14, started thinking about the world at aged 25, got to googling, 10 years later they believe in every fuckin' goofy conspiracy theory and fuckin' Bilderberg, the jews are out to get us, crazy fuckin' bullshit.

Education doesn't just fill you full of information, it gives you the tools to process information too, helps you fine tune your bullshit detector.  You hear a lot of anti-education shit doing the rounds these days but I find it all to be a bit much.  Education is INCREDIBLY important, you don't really understand how important until you spend your time around serious uneducated people, honestly, these people are robbed of a fuckin' life.  Its kinda like being born fully blind, no blind person can truly describe blindness to the non-blind, we just imagine its seeing black but black is a fuckin' colour, what they see is nothing, its difficult to concieve what that is when all you've known is the wonder of light and colours etc. 

I mean imagine have zero fuckin' education right, like flat fuckin' zero, you live in some outback third world country.  Then one day you get a migrane.  A searing migrane.  One that feels like your heads gonna have cave in.  You have no reference point to what a migrane is, not even a rudimentary grasp of human biology or any kinda vague idea what could possibly be causing this shit.  Your natural response to it will not be a rational one, it might even drive you insane out of fear and have you crying and screaming to God and send you delirious.  Then the people in your village, who believe in demons and possessions maybe have you tied to a bed and have the shit beaten out of you, or perhaps call for an irresponsible script happy doctor from the nearest city that thinks you're having a psychotic episode so they dope you up indefinitely and leave you like a fuckin' pot plant.   I've seen it happen.  And this is one random fuckin' example out of millions and millions. 

So yeah kids, value your fuckin' education and get as much of it as you can, particularly if its for free, its put a lot in your head that you take for granted.

our ancestors went to school till 14, and they did alright, even though some of them barely got past writing their name.

it wasn't always like this. people used to learn their craft, and for ages people were then set for the rest of their lives.

take my dad for example. If I even talk to him about proteins and vitamins he gives me the look as if I come from another planet.

we like to act very knowledgeable these days. "oh, this food contains much omega 3". but we're all just acting like freaks.

[EvanG]

32 minutes ago, Len Cnut said:

I don't doubt that its possible but, see, there's a difference between possible and advisable and aside from that I think its important to like have a clear distinction with these things.  I mean it is a massive undertaking and one should be aware of that ahead of time.  I'm sure there are people with the good intentions and requisite discipline to go through with it in a decent and servicable manner but the problem with promoting something or putting it forward as a good idea is...how do you know who has that discipline and good intentions?  I guess end of the day people are free to do what they want and as long as a child ain't deprived let em get on with it. 

Everyone educates themselves to a certain degree, I meant home-schooling replacing a formal education, like a hired teacher or a parent taking you through a syllabus etc, which I think is what you're talking about also.  I just think its a concept that is a bit dangerous to proliferate because not everybody has the discipline and commitment to see it through and also, teaching is a skilled job, they don't just fall off a christmas tree, a good teacher has something to them that your average fella don't, a good teacher at best can be inspirational but a bad teacher can create monsters.  Schools have some kind of a regulatory approach.  Also, y'know, interaction with people your own age is, broadly speaking, a good thing.

My basic point is how do you know who its good for and who it ain't?  By trying right?  Well its one of those things where its peoples lives that you're running experiments on, there's probably hundreds of thousands of zealous, well meaning but utterly ill-equipped parents out there in the world right now administering a home education and kinda fuckin' with their kids lives.  By the same token I suppose there's probably kids that might benefit from a home schooling that suffered in traditional schooling.  Its the deciding process, the working out who is good for what that, to me, is kinda dangerous ground.  At very least I think its a minority that would benefit from home schooling and a majority that would suffer because not everybody is capable of teaching. 

You are right. I'm not advocating home schooling. For the majority traditional schooling is the better option, for sure. My sister is a teacher, I went to uni to become a teacher myself (before changing major), so I know how important it is, just saying that there are exceptions and that for a minority home schooling can be the better option. 

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Everyone educates themselves to a certain degree

It never stops, whether it's through a film or book, or something you read on a forum and you read up on it, you are always learning new things and educating yourself to a certain degree.

[Len Cnut]

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our ancestors went to school till 14, and they did alright, even though some of them barely got past writing their name.

Perhaps thats why they only did 'alright'

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it wasn't always like this. people used to learn their craft, and for ages people were then set for the rest of their lives.

Yeah and before that it wasn't like that and after this it won't be like this.  There's a pattern there, get on your algebra sunbeam.

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take my dad for example. If I even talk to him about proteins and vitamins he gives me the look as if I come from another planet.

Well you need em to live, whether you're aware or not of them is inconsequential, as long as they're there.  And awareness never hurt anybody (this conversation has potential to become very buddhist )

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we like to act very knowledgeable these days. "oh, this food contains much omega 3". but we're all just acting like freaks.

I don't.  Just get a bit of meat and veg in your life, thats about the length and breadth of it for me.  A few press ups and sit ups a day never hurt either.  I'm not against being diet-aware though, particularly if you have a certain set of goals.

[soon]

8 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

Studies show that whereas 11 % of children in American US' schools have parents with an educational level of "less than high school", the number is 15 % for children who are homeschooled (how can it be allowed to let people with no education homeschool??). Even more worryingly, the same number for homeschooled children was only 1 % in 1996. So increasingly parents with little to no education homeschool their children. 

Also, 51 % of parents who homeschool state religious reasons for this decision, 61 % because they don't like school curriculums, and 67 % because they want to provide moral instructions to their kids. 

When all this is summarized in a humorous post you get something like, "You quite often find it's the least educated and capable people who choose to home school. It's a big problem with god botherers who don't want their kids to learn actual facts." 

The point that I spoke to was claiming that people homeschool to avoid facts. Your meandering, oddly US specific and 100% unsourced post didn’t even manage to address that.   

Black people and other racialized groups homeschool to protect themselves and/or their children from systemic racism for instance. 

 

 

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53 minutes ago, Len Cnut said:

 

I don't.  Just get a bit of meat and veg in your life, thats about the length and breadth of it for me.  A few press ups and sit ups a day never hurt either.  I'm not against being diet-aware though, particularly if you have a certain set of goals.

oh, but that's not what I meant. by all means, eat healthy. Our ancestors ate pork meat, roasted in fat butter and a slice of bread, and they lived to 80 and beyond.

what I meant is, I see all these people around me acting all knowledgeable, making themselves look like utter twats. "sun beams, that's good for vitamin A." (or was it vitamine D?) "I feel a bit stressed, my dopamine levels are off" "don't drive your car to the grocery store, it's bad for C02 levels".

it's just this unnecessary semi-scientific boasting that I find objection with. And I'm going: "get a grip and act normal, without trying to impress me with your factual knowledge".

Doesn't this focus on fancy scientific terms mask their fundamental ignorance on even the simplest of matters? It's often people with the largest vocabulary who happen to have the worse reasoning ability. You don't need facts to reason. Faced with a problem, you can perfectly come up with a solution yourself by measuring all options against each other. Factual knowledge is certainly not a prerequisite to solve a problem. That's why intelligence tests are highly abstract, precisely for this reason.

[SoulMonster]

1 hour ago, soon said:

The point that I spoke to was claiming that people homeschool to avoid facts. Your meandering, oddly US specific and 100% unsourced post didn’t even manage to address that.   

I would love to provide data for the world in total, but in the absence of such data we have to discuss homeschooling in the context of a country for which we actually have data, acknowledging that this limitation means that the data might not be directly transferable to every other country, like England, Belgium or Canada, but then again Dazey didn't talk about any single country but homeschooling as a phenomenon.

61 % of those homeschooling in USA do it because they are not satisfied with "academic instruction" and 51 % do it because they want to provide "religious instruction." Wouldn't you say that it is then likely that some of these people are religious nutjobs who want to fill the heads of their children with religious mumbojumbo instead of facts based in science? Like teaching them Intelligent Design rather than evolution? In the words of Divoky, "Probably a majority of home schoolers are religious fundamentalists, unhappy with the failure of public schools to teach religious and spiritual tenets and with what they sometime describe as the "secular humanism" that these schools allegedly espouse." 

[soon]

2 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

I would love to provide data for the world in total, but in the absence of such data we have to discuss homeschooling in the context of a country for which we actually have data, acknowledging that this limitation means that the data might not be directly transferable to every other country, like England, Belgium or Canada, but then again Dazey didn't talk about any single country but homeschooling as a phenomenon.

61 % of those homeschooling in USA do it because they are not satisfied with "academic instruction" and 51 % do it because they want to provide "religious instruction." Wouldn't you say that it is then likely that some of these people are religious nutjobs who want to fill the heads of their children with religious mumbojumbo instead of facts based in science? Like teaching them Intelligent Design rather than evolution? In the words of Divoky, "Probably a majority of home schoolers are religious fundamentalists, unhappy with the failure of public schools to teach religious and spiritual tenets and with what they sometime describe as the "secular humanism" that these schools allegedly espouse." 

You can make all the bigoted assumptions that you want. Although this is the Covid thread so you may as well go back to telling us how Covid is just like the flu. 

[Swampfox]

2 hours ago, soon said:

The point that I spoke to was claiming that people homeschool to avoid facts. Your meandering, oddly US specific and 100% unsourced post didn’t even manage to address that.   

Black people and other racialized groups homeschool to protect themselves and/or their children from systemic racism for instance. 

 

 

Systemic racism in schools?  You're serious?

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14 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

I would love to provide data for the world in total, but in the absence of such data we have to discuss homeschooling in the context of a country for which we actually have data, acknowledging that this limitation means that the data might not be directly transferable to every other country, like England, Belgium or Canada, but then again Dazey didn't talk about any single country but homeschooling as a phenomenon.

61 % of those homeschooling in USA do it because they are not satisfied with "academic instruction" and 51 % do it because they want to provide "religious instruction." Wouldn't you say that it is then likely that some of these people are religious nutjobs who want to fill the heads of their children with religious mumbojumbo instead of facts based in science? Like teaching them Intelligent Design rather than evolution? In the words of Divoky, "Probably a majority of home schoolers are religious fundamentalists, unhappy with the failure of public schools to teach religious and spiritual tenets and with what they sometime describe as the "secular humanism" that these schools allegedly espouse." 

no, we don't.

we can discuss it even in the absence of data. It may all not be accurate or laying claim to any sort of validity, but a discussion can be had nonetheless.

I believe, that is what we have been doing anyway

lack of data never stopped @SoulMonster from drawing the racist card anyway, even in the absence of posts indicating any of the sort

[SoulMonster]

1 hour ago, soon said:

You can make all the bigoted assumptions that you want. 

What is bigoted? 

[Len Cnut]

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what I meant is, I see all these people around me acting all knowledgeable, making themselves look like utter twats. "sun beams, that's good for vitamin A." (or was it vitamine D?) "I feel a bit stressed, my dopamine levels are off" "don't drive your car to the grocery store, it's bad for C02 levels".

Perhaps they're not trying to act all knowledgable and run game on you all that, perhaps terminology has changed, shit moves on.  I'm very much like you, I prefer the meat and potatoes approach but you gotta live and let live too man and not take shit like some guys tryna drop knowledge on you like that, I have begun to find that my meat and potatoes approach, as I plow towards my 40s, was some sort of equivalent of like...doing the bare minimum, its related to the skiver in me, the part of me that just wants everything to be easy and simple cuz I can't be bothered to use my brain.  Not saying thats what you're doing or even than my approach thus far as been entirely without merit, just saying, this kinda shit is sometimes worth considering, like if you are a certain way or think a certain way or choose a certain approach why is that and is that shit right.

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Doesn't this focus on fancy scientific terms mask their fundamental ignorance on even the simplest of matters? It's often people with the largest vocabulary who happen to have the worse reasoning ability.

I dunno, I'm a big language person and a big one for vocabulary, there aren't just scores of words for the same thing in every language just for the sake of it, they are there to provide detail and nuance and show you all the different aspects of a given thing.  I suppose thats a slightly different thing than what you're talking about.

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You don't need facts to reason. Faced with a problem, you can perfectly come up with a solution yourself by measuring all options against each other. Factual knowledge is certainly not a prerequisite to solve a problem. That's why intelligence tests are highly abstract, precisely for this reason.

You don't need facts to APPLY logic or reason but if you're actually interested in finding the answer or truth then they are a great help.  It's not a pre-requisite to solving a problem just as you don't need legs to play basketball but given the choice I'd rather the legs.  Knowledge and reason are not enemies.  

[Gracii Guns]

So please can someone explain something to me which I'm missing. 

There's a lot of talk about how we're in a recession and it's going to get much worse. 

I understand how an economic downturn is happening as many businesses can't operate now. But over the coming months, things are going to return to more or less as they were. People will return to their jobs, events will take place, businesses are going to pick up steam again, and people will spend money. 

How is all of the above going to worsen a recession, instead of if being a sign of a recovery? 

[Dazey]

1 minute ago, Gracii Guns said:

So please can someone explain something to me which I'm missing. 

There's a lot of talk about how we're in a recession and it's going to get much worse. 

I understand how an economic downturn is happening as many businesses can't operate now. But over the coming months, things are going to return to more or less as they were. People will return to their jobs, events will take place, businesses are going to pick up steam again, and people will spend money. 

How is all of the above going to worsen a recession, instead of if being a sign of a recovery? 

Likely because there will be less businesses after all this what with many having gone bust. A lot less people in work will also lead to less customers for the businesses that do survive and people just being less inclined to spend overall. 

[downzy]

1 hour ago, Gracii Guns said:

So please can someone explain something to me which I'm missing. 

There's a lot of talk about how we're in a recession and it's going to get much worse. 

I understand how an economic downturn is happening as many businesses can't operate now. But over the coming months, things are going to return to more or less as they were. People will return to their jobs, events will take place, businesses are going to pick up steam again, and people will spend money. 

How is all of the above going to worsen a recession, instead of if being a sign of a recovery? 

In economics there's something called the lag effect.  An event or action happening on day doesn't fully manifest until sometime later. 

So with respect to what we've seen so far, the effects of having significant portions of national economies shut down will have long-lasting consequences.  The health of economies are predicated on the amount of wealth, the split or distribution of wealth, and also the velocity of wealth.  When millions lose their jobs the velocity of wealth or money circulation slows down.  It forces both companies and individuals to adjust their spending which can have a further negative effect on how fast money moves around the economy.  Governments can help mitigate some of the problems by floating individuals and companies through tax cuts, subsidies, or welfare provisions like employment insurance and emergency funds.  The trick is to wind down that assistance as things start to improve.  What's likely to happen, particularly in the US, is that we'll send a premature end to government assistance and a significant portion of those forced out of work will be forced to rely on savings or figure out ways to further cut spending.

Governments can't float the economy for ever.  If the outbreak persists it will make it much harder for people to go back to work but also figure out ways to cover their bills.  That means millions of people who can't afford many of the luxuries that keeps much of the economy running for a significant portion of the population.  Dinners out, holidays, new cars, renovations, new appliances, new clothes, and other luxuries get put on hold as people manage not having a job to go back to or taking on a job that pays significantly less than their pre-pandemic job.  

 

To help get this topic back on track, here's what's going on in Europe versus what we're seeing in the US:

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2 hours ago, Len Cnut said:

Perhaps they're not trying to act all knowledgable and run game on you all that, perhaps terminology has changed, shit moves on.  

I noticed a trend, starting with the widespread access to internet (and knowledge), of people acting all douche with futile factual knowledge. I really do. It's like, these people happen to stumble upon something (it isn't exceptional; they practically throw facts at you when you surf the net), and they think they're all that great. These kind of people have always existed, but now they can feign intelligence with little bits and pieces of information. it is a strange thing to behold. People like that don't really anger me, rather I look at them in bemusement. Kind of like how I would watch a monkey wearing glasses or something. You can go two steps without encountering someone like that. And I believe, it only gets worse. I think it started with the so called grammar police, and now I think it's the source police. So.fucking.tiresome.

You just don't find calm, sober people anymore who you can have a normal conversation with, without them showing off with the latest fashion buzzword like CO2, omega3, covid-sars2-19 or equally tiresome terminology. why is it so hard to act normal? are people afraid to come across as stupid? they must lack confidence surely? Where are all the low-schooled people? (without demeaning those people in the slightest) is everyone highly intelligent? I just can't believe that.

I would 1000 times prefer someone with a sober look on life, rather than a know-it all. 

[marlingrl03]

2 hours ago, Dazey said:

Likely because there will be less businesses after all this what with many having gone bust. A lot less people in work will also lead to less customers for the businesses that do survive and people just being less inclined to spend overall. 

This ^. A lot of our restaurants ended up shutting down for good after the shut down in March and April. Also our state which in the summer heavily depends on tourists and oil production got hit hard with that. Record low oil prices, NO cruise ships wanting to come up here and also not many people are flying up here because of our very strict standards for entering our state. (getting a COVID test prior or self- quarantining for 14 days) So yeah it will take at least our state a long time to recover.....

[SoulMonster]

7 hours ago, EvanG said:

You are right. I'm not advocating home schooling. For the majority traditional schooling is the better option, for sure. My sister is a teacher, I went to uni to become a teacher myself (before changing major), so I know how important it is, just saying that there are exceptions and that for a minority home schooling can be the better option.

Even if you are a genius you would benefit from engaging with lecturers and other students. You learn so much for discussing ideas with others. The only cases where homeschooling would be better in terms of transferring knowledge to people, is where the parents doing the homeschooling are really good in all the subjects taught at school, and that is really not often the case. Teachers are professionals. They know the subject matter and pedagogics. It is kind of arrogant, and a devaluation of teachers, to think most parents could do the job as well. 

In addition, school isn't only for book knowledge but also for socialising. It is a place to interact with your peers. The value of school isn't limited to the classroom but also to what happens in the schoolyard and the corridors. 

I realize my post went beyond your post, Evan, I kind of used it as a starting point. 

[SoulMonster]

I kind of thing we are about to eradicate the virus in Norway now. Very little restrictions yet good control. Let's see what happens when people start travelling more again

[dontdamnmeuyi2015]

23 hours ago, Swampfox said:

There's a huge problem with this becoming the "new normal".  A lot of families are set up with both parents working to pay the bills each month.  Taking kids out of school prevents many women (and in some cases men) from returning to work.  It will force many parents to quit their jobs to be there so the kids can distance learn from home.  It's such a complicated situation for so many families.

I know it sure is. I'm working from home now, but I honestly feel my child will learn more by going to school, but I'm still worried. We have to decide by July. I think the schools will be pushed back until fall and not August like Texas schools usually open.

It was hard enough doing my work and helping my child with lessons over the computer. 

I know all schools and teachers will do their best to keep everyone safe, but who knows?

I know someone that went out to a club with a mask and got sick a few days later. 

Went to Walmart and some people weren't wearing masks again. I think opening up the states more and more, many people think it's safe now, but we all know it's not.

Numbers are up in Texas and Florida again. Trump is stil lhaving his ralley this weekend in OK. I have a bad feeling about this. Not just for the virus, but I think there may be protesters outside the venue and I do hope things don't get too out of hand.

Stay well and stay safe.

47 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

I kind of thing we are about to eradicate the virus in Norway now. Very little restrictions yet good control. Let's see what happens when people start travelling more again

Wow! That is amazing news!

Texas numbers are going up. More people sick in the hospitals.

I did see that there are steroids and some other meds that seem to be helping the very sick. That's good news so far.

It would be awesome to have a vaccine soon too.

[EvanG]

54 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

Even if you are a genius you would benefit from engaging with lecturers and other students. You learn so much for discussing ideas with others. The only cases where homeschooling would be better in terms of transferring knowledge to people, is where the parents doing the homeschooling are really good in all the subjects taught at school, and that is really not often the case. Teachers are professionals. They know the subject matter and pedagogics. It is kind of arrogant, and a devaluation of teachers, to think most parents could do the job as well. 

In addition, school isn't only for book knowledge but also for socialising. It is a place to interact with your peers. The value of school isn't limited to the classroom but also to what happens in the schoolyard and the corridors. 

I realize my post went beyond your post, Evan, I kind of used it as a starting point. 

A lot of teachers suck too and are far from professional unfortunately. Generally speaking, I agree, like I've already said, but it depends on many different factors and home-schooling could benefit some individuals in certain situations.

[SoulMonster]

4 minutes ago, EvanG said:

A lot of teachers suck too and are far from professional unfortunately. 

There will be huge differences between different schools in different countries. Some countries spend more money on educating teachers and building a good educational environment than others. Like with everything else. 

That being said, I don't think any country values teachers as high as they ought to be. The teachers role in society can barely be overstated. And they often do it at ridiculous salaries and under challenging conditions. Their role as educators and social work is crucial for society and we should acknowledge this and reward it correspondingly. 

They do a much better job than the vast majority of us parents could have. Because they are trained professionals. Because each child has many teachers specialised in different subjects. This can hardly be copied at home. 

Again, there might be occasions where parents are polyglots and can teach their children better than schools can, but in my opinion in most cases where this is true, the disadvantage of losing crucial interaction with other kids at school far outweighs the usually meager educational benefit. Because schools simply isn't only about book learning. It is an arena for crucial sosialisation. You cannot replicate this at home. And you cannot compensate for losing 5-8 hours of this by extracurricular activities in the evenings that school children engage in too. 

Homeschooling should be avoided. Any society where homeschooling is common is admitting defeat in building a working school system. It is a declaration of educational failure. 

Again, just using your post as a stepping stone, Evan, I don't think we disagree much. 

[soon]

I mean it’s called homeschooling, so I assume the kids just stay home. 

[downzy]

US back over 32k reported cases over a 24 hour period.  

I thought that was going to be the most for any nation until I saw Brazil is reporting over 55k new cases over the last 24 hours. 55k in one day. That’s scary.